Federalist Society

The Federalist Society is a conservative-libertarian nonprofit organization which was founded in 1982 with the goal of reforming the United States legal system in accordance with a textualist or originalist interpretation of the US Constitution. Mostly composed of elite conservative lawyers, the Society sought to check federal power, protect individual liberty, and network and mentor young conservative lawyers. By 2019, the Federalist Society reached the peak of its power, with five (Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito) of the nine US Supreme Court justices being members of the organization. It not only shaped law students' thinking but also shifted the country's judiciary to the right, and it played a key role in suggesting judicial nominees to President Donald Trump, with 25 out of his 30 appellate court nominees being Society members. In 2019, it had 70,000 practicing attorneys in 200 law schools across 90 cities.